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PUDO pods
Prevent cities from grinding to a halt |
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(+2)
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As self-driving cars become common, pick-up and drop-off (PUDO) spaces at the kerbside will soon be the constraint to sustain free-flowing traffic in many cities.
The solution is simple:
A small but structurally sturdy frame, let's call it a 'pod', can be erected adjacent to each preferred pick-up
point. As your particular self-driving car approaches, you are notified just in time for you to embark the seat attached to the frame. It has a cover, so the rain doesn't bother you.
Just before the car arrives, the first robotic arm swivels you out and aloft. The car stops; the second robotic arm pulls the previous pod out of the car's pod dock, the pod retaining bolts having been mechatronically withdrawn. You, in your pod, are deposited into the car which smoothly accelerates away into the almost undisrupted traffic stream with you seamlessly integrated into it.
At the other end of your journey, there may be a robotic arm standing by for extraction. If not, cleverly, the pod is fitted with a door and so, if you must, you can open the door yourself and disembark in the conventional manner.
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Why does the car have to stop? |
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Good point. The straitjacket of conventionality trapped my thinking. |
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You need a solution for the 'last mile' problem. You can have a small bus taking lots of passengers economically, but it is time consuming to get to the exact destination. Have a man-lifting drone pick people up and deliver them to the moving coach, and then do the other thing at the other end. |
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Might be a bit more comfortable than being a human mailbag being picked up by the post train. |
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Will we soon be looking back at years gone by, and nostalgically moaning 'I remember when there wasn't a continuously varying all-pervasive whizzing noise all around us'?' |
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On the bright side, it would be good for masking tinnitus. |
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